ridenoco

Friday, August 30, 2013

In a time when the metal world is sounding too familiar, too rehashed, and too much like a watered down version of itself, history has shown that Metal music enters a state of natural metamorphosis.

During the 1960�s, most of music spoke of peace and love until a band like none other came from the industrial town of Birmingham England by the name of Black Sabbath and created the genre single-handedly.

They showed the word that not everybody was living on cloud nine. Metal grew very organically and from it came the legendary Led Zeppelin, which would prove to be the yin to the Black Sabbath yang, the two bands paving the road to create the art form we know today.

It grew in England until the 1970�s when Punk eventually delivered a knockout punch to metal, sending metal to its deathbed. That overly simple, anti-attitude towards music became the norm, requiring people not to think and just react to the music, something that caused mixed feelings with the civil unrest in England at the time.

As Rob Halford, lead singer of Judas Priest said in an interview on VH1�s Heavy: The Story of Metal, �Suddenly musicians changed their thinking overnight; radio stations changed their thinking overnight, and metal suddenly became a dirty word.�

Metal was officially greeted by its first of many obstacles. Bands such as Judas Priest and Iron Maiden returned metal to its roots, offering more of a tougher style laced with raw sex appeal and more difficult music.

Their brand of music was a Godsend to metal, bringing it out of obscurity and back into the limelight as a respected form of musical art.

It was heavier and instantly defined itself as something to be reckoned with. It respected people more than Punk music at the time, allowing them to travel to worlds only bands like Maiden could create and letting them spread their own wings, instead of writing songs about vomiting and hating the Queen.

The 1980s forced metal to reinvent itself again but this time, the enemy was itself.

In the midst of the PMRC hearings in which the United Stated Government dubbed metal music unclean by �Reganomic� standards, metal music became a product. Metal became a muddle of young boys with appalling hairstyles writing sappy ballads. Many bands lost their integrity but cried all the way to the bank.

Interns, record executives, and producers believed they had a handle on metal and knew what they were doing, ushering bands that once had a hard edge right to the unemployment line.

Another uprising started in the form of thrash up-comer revolutionists Slayer, Anthrax, Metallica, and Megadeth. These bands shattered the watered down metal music throughout the 1990�s.

Since the 1980�s thrash movement, which some call the renaissance of metal; the genre has once again been choked by itself by a culture that thrives on the comfortable and familiar. Growling cookie monster vocals have replaced true talent and harmony, once beautiful and driving guitar solos are now replaced with de-tuned bar chords, and Pro Tools ensured mediocre metal singers that they could hit every note without working too hard.

New metal as it�s called, was once an interesting and sometimes refreshing take on metal music but now is reminiscent of the 1980�s and 1990�s when a culture has become too comfortable with the norm and bands who once �wow�ed� us with their sheer talent are now nonexistent. Bands are now writing songs that are radio friendly, not too flashy, and stick to the cookie cutter, de-tuned formula that was old 5 years ago.

He goes on to explain why Avenged Sevenfold has saved metal music. Not quite revolutionary, but he is entitled to his opinion. Anyways, just thought it was interesting.

I've been soul-searching for the past...two weeks maybe. Call it shallow soul searching, but after a little whiskey and a hell of a good show at the Aggie with 20XIII, I have decided to try once more to adhere to the wonderful world of bloggerific b.s.

As long as I can pretend this isn't a blog. Just a forum for Northern Colorado Punk and Metal...stuff. Stuff keeps it loosely defined so that I can give you what you want.

And I'm gonna get rid of the name. Now, it's just going to be "Dirty, Sexy Music." No more groupie gazette.

c.) Music, at it's heart, should be raw passion. That's why it's dirty. Sometimes the best moments in music are unfiltered truth. heart to heart.

I'm not sure what my final point here is, but if you are a band: contact me for free publicity. If you aren't a band: comment you're little heart out so that I can act as a way to connect you...to them.

See...there's this notion that "blogs" reach "opinion leaders." This makes you rather freakin' important. Get it? So thanks for being so important.

And remember, spread music like love.

XOXO,
schmoker.

P.S. If you are a future employer googling my name...I have a really cool portfolio. And given the opportunity, I'm really rather tactful. And have two degrees. Which make me more intellectual than I lead on. Have I shot my chances with your company yet? Most employers value honesty...and social media skills...

To celebrate their show at Red Rocks tonight (which, hopefully won't be rained out), I am dedicating this post to reviews on their new CD Let The Dominoes Fall.

Rolling Stone says: "The stats tell the story: 19 songs, 45 minutes, dozens of slogans bellowed over buzzing major chords. The first Rancid album following a six-year recording hiatus is a Rancid record par excellence � a cannonball blast of punk classicism, alternating between galloping double-time punk pogos and the soulful swing that co-frontmen Tim Armstrong and Lars Frederiksen learned from the Clash."

Boston Globe says: "Sometimes observing that a band keeps making the same record is an insult. Not so with Rancid - and not when the records are this good."

Spin says: "The sunny brutalism of Rancid's East Bay ska-thrash has lost nary a step and their ethical-emotional rigor is as sweet as it is pure. They repo the melody from 1995's 'Ruby Soho' to sing about feeling 'disconnected from the country I love'; blaze through Iraq/media/Katrina gripes; and write with working-class empathy about a soldier, a stripper, and punk rock itself -- 'a place where everyone can belong.'"

The New York Times says: "There are sharp lyrics, lovely harmonies at the hook and a pair of raucous guitar minisolos, a minute apart, which constitute this album�s most explicit moment of Rancid reaching beyond itself for something greater, and getting it."

I have signed myself up to receive notifications from google.com whenever the word "punk" comes up in the news. So far, there have been several articles ranging from Pete Wentz "gobbing" at a photographer at the Bellagio-apparently "gobbing" is a punk term, there's a wrestler named CM Punk who keeps coming up, and there's a chick named Ann Sui in Singapore who has designed clothes aimed at "punk rock chicks." Nothing anybody in this scene REALLY care about.

And then I came accross this Los Angelos Times interview with author Nicholas Rombes about his new book "A Cultural Dictionary of Punk: 1974-1982."

My first reaction was honestly to sigh and wonder why someone was exploiting their personal experience with The Ramones or Black Flag or The Sex Pistols for money again, and why I should care.

But then I read about how much research this guy did for his book. As a journalist, I am thrilled at how much he immersed himself into anything from that time that he could find.

According to the interview, this includes records, fanzines, articles from newspaper archives, interviews with people, and anything else he could get his hands on through EBay.

The book is written in encyclopedic fashion. Each topic is in alphabetical order. Topics range from adolescents to The Zeros, with anything like MTV and minimalism in between. (View the full Table of Contents here.)

I was particularly interested in hearing Rombes' view on where punk stands today and whether he sees an opportunity for a punk revival. Or, in other words, his view on the age-old debate: Is punk dead?

He says in response, "No, I don�t think so. Because I think ultimately punk is about destroying the past. Punk was about destroying the 1960s. Just like the Ramones destroyed the long concept albums into these short, fast songs about nothing.

And then California hardcore stripped down the Ramones by taking out the fun.

It would have to disavow punk. It would have to be something else. A true punk revival would spit on punk."

While I don't share his attitude that punk was completely founded on nihilism, it is an interesting and well-thought-out researched opinion.

The book can be bought through Continuum for a total of around $30.00 right now, or pre-ordered through Amazon.com for a total of around $20.00.